Phanan, how do you define retro? Not everything in the late seventies and early eighties had a particular genre label but it definitely sounds retro.

Well, as I said at the beginning the term "retro" itself is quite broad, and there have been different periods of music that this term can be applied to. But it is most closely associated with New Wave, which evolved out of punk. So I thought it would be a great idea to focus on this specific genre and time period, as there was a lot of great stuff that came out, and it's fascinating how things progressed from an act like The Sex Pistols to artists like Depeche Mode.

I could have called this Punk/New Wave Island, but Retro Island was much better.

I understand, but he and Bowie were considered pioneers of the genre, right? "On the Air" off of Peter Gabriel II sounds incredibly like something from the era.

EDIT: Looks like this has already been cleared up. But using something from Bowie's Low should be allowed, methinks.

I see Bowie and Gabriel more of creating the sound but not neccessarily the genre of new wave. They brought synths and solid pop-rock together. That was huge but the genre itself can be tranced back to other artists.

I see Bowie and Gabriel more of creating the sound but not neccessarily the genre of new wave. They brought synths and solid pop-rock together. That was huge but the genre itself can be tranced back to other artists.

Right, but you can't have the genre without the sound, you know? It's gotta come from some place and those two artists in particular are credited for influencing a whole dearth of artists, if you wanna get technical about it.

You've also gotta credit artists like Kraftwerk and Gary Numan for pushing this into the mainstream as well, but that goes without saying.